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A Stafford Loan, also called a Direct Loan, is a federal student loan from the U.S. Department of Education that you can apply for in order to help pay for college. As with any loan, you’re required to pay it back plus the interest.

Federal student loans are available to eligible students for education at a four-year college or university, community college, or trade, career or technical school.

Of course, it’s best to avoid borrowing through student loans, if possible. But federal loans are often preferable to private loans because they come with some perks.

Here’s what you need to know about Stafford Loans.

There are two types of Stafford Loans: subsidized and unsubsidized.

Subsidized loans are only available to undergraduate students. Unsubsidized loans are available to undergraduate, graduate and professional school students.

With subsidized student loans, the government pays the interest during certain periods. These include while you’re in school at least half-time, for the first six months after you leave school (also called your grace period) and if you ever qualify for an approved deferment.

If the interest on an unsubsidized loan is not paid during a deferment or forbearance period, the unpaid interest will be capitalized, or added to the principal balance, at the end of the deferment or forbearance period.

In order to qualify for subsidized student loans, you’ll need to demonstrate financial need. That is not the case with unsubsidized loans. These loans are available to eligible graduate and professional students in addition to undergraduate students, and eligibility isn’t based on financial need.

You’re required to pay the interest for the life of the loan, even during payment pauses. However, there are exceptions, such as if you have a deferment due to active cancer treatment. Also, the current payment pause and interest waiver during the pandemic temporarily sets the interest rate to zero on both subsidized and unsubsidized loans.

For undergraduate students, the maximum you can borrow each year ranges from $5,500 to $12,500 per year for both subsidized and unsubsidized loans. The amount you can borrow depends on your dependency status and what year you are in school. Dependent undergraduate students can borrow $5,500 to $7,500 per year and independent students can borrow $9,500 to $12,500 a year.

For graduate and professional borrowers, you can borrow up to $20,500 each year of Direct Unsubsidized Loans.

“Only borrow what you need, and keep track of how much you’ve borrowed to date,” says Jill Desjean, senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA).

In addition to Stafford subsidized and unsubsidized loans, there are Direct PLUS Loans. These are for graduate or professional students as well as parents of dependent undergraduate students. Unlike Stafford or Direct Loans, Direct PLUS Loans require a credit check. But it’s not to see if you have a high credit score.

The credit check is used to check whether the borrower has an “adverse credit history,” which is a serious delinquency of more than $2,085 in debt in the past two years or certain derogatory events (bankruptcy discharge, foreclosure, repossession, tax lien, wage garnishment or default determination) within the past five years. Eligibility for a PLUS Loan does not depend on the borrower’s credit scores, income, debt-to-income ratios or the duration of employment with the current employer, unlike private student loans.

These loans are unsubsidized, and you can borrow the remainder of college costs (as determined by the college) that are not covered by financial aid.

The maximum loan length for Stafford Loans is 10 to 30 years, but your repayment length depends on the repayment plan you choose and the amount you borrow.

There are benefits and drawbacks to federal student loans over private student loans. For starters, if you demonstrate financial need, you may qualify for subsidized loans, and have the interest paid during deferments.

“Direct subsidized and unsubsidized loans come with borrower protections not often found with other types of loans,” says Desjean.

Some benefits of Stafford Loans that Desjean points out include:

Federal student loans offer a fixed interest rate that’s set annually on July 1. A fixed interest rate, as opposed to a variable interest rate, means it will stay the same until you pay it off—no surprises or sudden increases. Rates change yearly but won’t be higher than 8.25% for undergraduates. For the Stafford Loan for graduate and professional school students, the cap is 9.5%, and for the PLUS Loans it’s 10.5%.

These are the interest rates for federal student loans disbursed between July 1, 2021, and July 1, 2022:

You also don’t need a co-signer, and you don’t have to begin repaying the loans until six months after you leave college or drop below half-time.

As with any student loan, there are drawbacks. All student loans accrue interest, so you’ll be paying back a greater amount than you borrowed. While federal student loans offer deferments, there are time limits to these and they need to be approved.

There are also limitations on who is eligible for repayment plans. If you don’t make your payments, this can not only damage your credit rating, but also lead to garnishing your wages and the withholding of any tax refunds you might have received. Plus, dealing with too much student loan debt can make it more challenging to reach other financial goals down the line, such as saving for retirement.

Limitations are one drawback of federal loans specifically, says Desjean. “Direct subsidized and unsubsidized loans have annual and aggregate limits, so students may not be able to borrow as much as they need to cover the gap between college costs and financial aid,” she says.

“Some students with very good credit and/or a co-signer might be able to get a better interest rate in the private market than from federal loans, and private loans may offer refinancing options that aren’t available with Direct Loans,” she adds.

Desjean also points out that Direct Loans generally cannot be discharged in bankruptcy either.

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